Crunchtime Inventory vs Control Play
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Crunchtime Inventory
This mobile application provides comprehensive inventory management for restaurant teams. It allows for easy counting, ordering, invoice reconciliation, and real-time business insights to optimize operations and reduce waste.
- Intuitive inventory counting with barcode scanner
- Simultaneous team counting (online/offline)
- Easy order placement and invoice reconciliation
- Real-time sales and cost tracking
- Waste minimization and order accuracy improvement
- Data-driven decision making
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Crunchtime is the restaurant industry’s leading solution for inventory management. In one powerful mobile app, restaurant teams can achieve complete inventory control straight from a phone or tablet. Even if you're on the go, you can navigate your inventory tasks effortlessly and keep your restaurant operation running smoothly. Crunchtime makes it easy for restaurant teams to: • Manage Inventory with Ease – Save time and reduce errors with an intuitive inventory counting process, including a barcode scanner and a built-in calculator. Count simultaneously with your team, online or offline, and maintain perpetual inventory you can trust. • Easily Place Orders and Reconcile Invoices – Confirm deliveries, check product quantities and temperatures, apply qualitative judgments, and attach feedback or pictures to products or orders —all in the app. Eliminate supplier overcharges and ensure order accuracy from the convenience of your smartphone or tablet. • Get Real-Time Business Insights – Track sales, food and labor costs, guest counts and so much more. Track real-time performance from the consolidated brand level down to each location. Quickly identify top-performing stores and areas needing improvement with actionable insights. • Optimize Operations – Free up managers and staff from manual paperwork, minimize waste, and improve order accuracy, all while making data-driven decisions on the go. NOTE: Use of Crunchtime requires a subscription.
Control Play
This app provides licensed music and music videos for businesses, with content curated and rated for appropriate business use. It also enables digital signage and audio messaging to engage customers, and offers a library of digital assets for enhanced guest experiences.
- Licensed music and music videos for businesses
- Content rating for business demographics
- Digital signage and audio messaging
- Customizable playlists
- Library of digital assets for guest experiences
- Daily automatic content updates
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Control Play allows you to stream millions of songs from the Managed Media business-music library that features hits from the biggest artists of all time, and provides music that is specifically licensed for use in businesses. All songs are exhaustively reviewed by a team of music professionals and content-rated for business demographics to ensure that you never play inappropriate content that could jeopardize the relationship with your customer. - Available in music and/or music video formats - All music is censored, with explicit available as an option that can be scheduled to only play after a specific time of day - Human curated rating system applied to all Songs for audio and visual components, with simple ratings: Kids, All Ages, 13+, 18+, Explicit - Daily automatic content updates - Thousands of licensed HD Music Videos - Create your own custom music playlists with Playlist Builder ## Promote (Digital Signage & Audio Messaging) With the use of Screens and Speakers connected to your Control Play Player, you can promote, inform, and engage customers with your own messaging. We have professionally produced hundreds of stock pieces of content that can be used out of the box. You can also upload your own content, or get access to our professional production team to create custom promotions for special offers, products and services, upcoming events, social media, or for relaying specific messaging unique to your business. - Library of hundreds of business and industry-specific pieces of digital content which can be filtered to just the content that is relevant to your business - Multiple media formats from Video-only, to Audio-Video and Audio-only - Use Playlist Builder to create playlists, or mix with other content - Replace inappropriate content visuals with promotional messaging - Upload your own content - Custom production available ## Experience+ Control Play has been building high impact, engaging guest experiences for almost 20 years. Core to this is a Content Integration full of unique digital assets that seamlessly integrate into your other Content Integrations and take your guest experience to the next level. Experience+ content can be played on-demand, scheduled to play automatically, built into custom playlists, or automated with Seasonal Events. - Library of hundreds of business and industry-specific pieces of digital content which can be filtered to just the content that is relevant to your business - Seasonal Event Visualizers - Special Event Warm-ups - Sports-themed Pre-game & Post-game Exciters, including Fight Songs - Birthday Celebration content - Novelty Dances and Kids Novelty Montages - National Anthems - Closing Messages - Sound Effects & Background Video - Use Playlist Builder to create playlists or mix with other content - Replace inappropriate content visuals with Experience+ content - Custom production available ## Control Play: Remote App Features: - Interact with the Now Playing playlist in real-time - Search the Music, Promote and Experience+ Content Libraries - Browse Music, Promote and Experience+ Playlists - Build custom playlists with the powerful Playlist Builder, and take advantage of advanced programming features to create playlists that are fine-tuned to your business - Create and Update your Automations so that your Player runs itself - View your Player's live Schedule - Review Play History to keep tabs on what's playing - Create, update and play Video Texts - Update your Player's settings, including time-based Content Blocks - Control your Restricted Access settings to restrict staff from unauthorized use - Remote control Multiple Zone & Location Players ## PLEASE NOTE: The Control Play: Remote app requires a Control Play hardware Player and valid user account. If you don't have a Control Play Player, please visit www.controlplay.com for more information.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Control Play at free against Crunchtime Inventory's subscription. Crunchtime Inventory's advantage is ratings volume (617 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.6). On price, rating, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Crunchtime Inventory against 5.0 for Control Play. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Crunchtime Inventory has 617 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Crunchtime Inventory ships an update every 6 weeks, Control Play every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and June 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Crunchtime Inventory | Control Play |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (617 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 25.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 617 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Subscription | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 91 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | CrunchTime! Information Systems, Inc. | Managed Media Inc. |
Customer experience
Crunchtime Inventory
Control Play
In-app purchases
Crunchtime Inventory
No in-app purchases
Control Play
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Crunchtime Inventory free?
Is Control Play free?
Which has better reviews, Crunchtime Inventory or Control Play?
Do Crunchtime Inventory or Control Play have ads?
Which is updated more often, Crunchtime Inventory or Control Play?
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